The White House wants women to have more babies. They're ignoring part of the problem -- men. [View all]

Source: USA Today

The White House wants women to have more babies. They're ignoring part of the problem — men.

Alyssa Goldberg, USA TODAY
Thu, May 29, 2025 at 8:01 AM EDT 5 min read

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Trad wives, or “homestead creators,” are making waves on social media for romanticizing the nuclear family unit that Trump and Vice President JD Vance have lauded.

But when partners struggle to conceive, the burden is rarely distributed evenly between men and women. Still, fertility experts say we’re missing a key component of the conversation – male infertility.

Research shows that for heterosexual couples trying to conceive, when the cause of infertility can be attributed to a known factor, it's a roughly 50-50 split between male and female factors. The male partner was found to be solely responsible in about 20% of infertility cases, and a contributing factor in another 30-40% of all cases. Male and female infertility factors often coexist, yet a high number of men do not undergo testing before their female partner begins IVF, according to Dr. Neel Shah, the Chief Medical Officer at Maven Clinic, a virtual clinic for women’s and family health.

“Our healthcare system generally seems better designed for men than for women, but men are more reluctant to engage with it in the first place,” he says. “It’s relatively common for women to go through entire fertility journeys, and the men to never be tested. But when you don't treat the couple as a unit, the burden is disproportionately on one person.”

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Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-house-wants-women-more-120119498.html